


Nightmares

by apprehensiveAcolyte



Category: Firefly, Torchwood
Genre: Backstory- Jayne Cobb, But reading the wiki page about CoE will definitely help, Familiarity with Torchwood not required, Gen, I know this is bad, In which the Alliance is even more terrible than previously thought, No pairings - Freeform, Not Incest, Post-Serenity, Sibling Relationship, The 456, and no the word count was not intentional, ignores the comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 02:37:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6311899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apprehensiveAcolyte/pseuds/apprehensiveAcolyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Super short vignette in which River knows something she's not supposed to about the Alliance's secret population control program. I don't know what this is tbh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> I might write more of this. Might not. Though I am working on a few more River-centric projects if you like this one

“Oh my god, River, what happened?” Simon asked, holding his sister tightly. “Did you have that dream again?”  
“Yeah,” the young woman whimpered. “Fourth time this week. I can’t- I can’t get rid of it.”  
“Do you want to try and get some sleep again? You haven’t slept at all since these dreams started. I can give you something to keep them away.”  
“No, I can’t go back to sleep, I just can’t…”  
Simon sighed and held his younger sister closer. “It’s just a dream, mei mei. It can’t hurt you.”  
“Doesn’t feel like a dream,” she gasped. “Feels like…”  
“Is it like Miranda?”  
River stiffened for a moment. “The Alliance population stability initiative is meant to be a mutually beneficient agreement between both of our races,” she recited, almost reflexively.  
“Both of our races? River, what does that mean?”  
“I don’t… I don’t know…” She was shaking slightly from anxiety, even with Simon’s efforts to keep her comfortable. “Like eggs stolen from the nest in the dead of night, all they leave behind are empty homes and empty hearts and the promise that one day they will finish what they started all those years ago-”  
“Will you tell your crazy sister to shut her gorram mouth for one ruttin’ second?” Jayne shouted as he made his way into River’s bunk. “Bad enough I have to listen to that go-se during the day.”  
“What do you know about missing kids?” Simon interrupted.  
“Who’s askin’?” Obviously, Jayne did know something, but he wouldn’t give it away easily.  
“I am. And if you know something, you need to tell us now.”  
“I don’t need a ruttin’ therapist.”  
“You don’t need to be trusted with an assault rifle either, yet that happens every day.”  
“Fine. I was what, seven when this happened? Couple of my friends and me went out in the hills, dunno what we were doin’ out there but I’m sure as hell glad we did it. My buddy suddenly yells that the clouds are actin’ weird. I don’t look, then the kid screams like a cat in a blender and hits the ground. That sure as hell got my attention, so I look up and there’s this huge… fire tornado looking thing comin’ out from the sky. I run back to Mama like a little kid and the poor woman’s just screaming she thought they took me too. ‘Cept me and my buddies, every single kid in town just disappeared that day. Nobody ever talked about it.”  
“Every child in town?” Simon asked. “You’re sure?”  
“Sure as hell! I’m not making this up.”  
“He’s telling the truth,” River stated simply. “You can run and you can hide but the piper always comes back for his pay.”


End file.
